• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
They are not remotely close to "terrible". They are perfectly fine. Its certainly no worse than every single Philosopher advisor in EU4 having exactly the same portrait.

No-one is going into hysterics over the lack of variety in EU4 Philosophers... yet they are upset that there isn't enough variety in these kings faces?
Stylized drawings that made them immediately recognizable and depended on region was cool. The game having same looking portraits for all people of all social classes that have no distinguishing quality and do the same lame poses is not cool. Hope this helps!
 
  • 6
  • 4
  • 2Like
  • 1
Reactions:
Okay but the average modder isn't making a total overhaul fantasy mod (to which the main limitation/time consuming thing is remaking the world). Look at the workshop for EU4 and see out of the thousands of mods how many are total overhaul fantasy mods. Heck look at the hoi4 workshop where virtually all total overhaul mods are still on the topic of interwar/20th century. The only PDX GSG that actually seems to have a lot of mods taking place in separate eras/fantasy overhauls is CK3, the game with the most sophisticated 3D models.

No offence to the small mod makers, but the popular mods are more often than not the overhaul mods, and fantasy or otherwise overhaul mods require some kind of art that isn't present in the main game.

I'll go through each of the games:
EU4's popular non UI/localisation mods:
Anbennar - fantasy mod that requires multiple fantasy races
Third Odyssey - alt history that requires bespoke clothing and hairstyles
Imperium Universalis - time shift that requires bespoke clothing and hairstyles
Ante Bellum - again, alt history that requires bespoke clothing and hairstyles

HoI4:
Kaiserreich - alt history that requires bespoke clothing and hairstyles
Old world blues - Fallout mod that needs a complete aesthetic overhaul, including a myriad of mutant portraits
TNO - alt history time shift which requires modern clothing
You can probably work out how much you need to do to make the myriad of other popular overhaul mods for Hoi4, star wars, pax Britannica ect.

CK3: it has 3D portraits, and production of major mods have been slowed considerably by them.
Elder kings - fantasy, requires a complete overhaul to characters
Game of thrones - low fantasy, requires bespoke clothing and hairstyles
Realms in Exile - LotR mod, requires complete overhaul for fantasy races, most of the world is not implied yet.
 
Last edited:
  • 6
  • 2Like
  • 2
  • 1
Reactions:
Okay but the average modder isn't making a total overhaul fantasy mod (to which the main limitation/time consuming thing is remaking the world). Look at the workshop for EU4 and see out of the thousands of mods how many are total overhaul fantasy mods. Heck look at the hoi4 workshop where virtually all total overhaul mods are still on the topic of interwar/20th century. The only PDX GSG that actually seems to have a lot of mods taking place in separate eras/fantasy overhauls is CK3, the game with the most sophisticated 3D models.
The overhauls make this game worth playing. Have you heard of Anbennar or Tamriel Universalis or Westeros Universalis? Plus, there is NO WAY the main game will have enough models in the next eight years. We already saw a medieval king with an early modern background. This game covers the entire world through five centuries, it will always look off, always look anachronistic and will never be enough. Whenever I boot up Anbennar I will see Cannorians just recycling European clothing because it is easier for the mod to recycle stuff and they will never have enough 3D artists. Whereas they had enough 2D artists and had as many paintings as the vanilla game. But in this game they will never reach the visual richness of the vanilla, which won't be good itself. These "super modular" models look the same and require far too much work. And because the devs work on them, they want us to see them and make them cover half the screen. This was never a good idea, but I hope they make a metric ton of assets, otherwise it will stop being neutral and start to actively make the game worse.
 
  • 8
  • 1
  • 1
Reactions:
Okay but the average modder isn't making a total overhaul fantasy mod (to which the main limitation/time consuming thing is remaking the world). Look at the workshop for EU4 and see out of the thousands of mods how many are total overhaul fantasy mods. Heck look at the hoi4 workshop where virtually all total overhaul mods are still on the topic of interwar/20th century. The only PDX GSG that actually seems to have a lot of mods taking place in separate eras/fantasy overhauls is CK3, the game with the most sophisticated 3D models.
Multiple CK3 mods were either slowed down by the 3D models or just use the normal assets. It is extremely hard to find 3D artists. And unlike HOI4, an aggressively barren and limited game, EU5 will be modded to every era of human history and any speculative fiction universe. Just imagine having to make a modern day mod for this game. Or a bronze age mod. Or a Middle Earth/Wheel of Time/Star Wars mod. It would be far easier with 2D models.
 
  • 6
  • 3Like
  • 1
  • 1
Reactions:
Multiple CK3 mods were either slowed down by the 3D models or just use the normal assets. It is extremely hard to find 3D artists. And unlike HOI4, an aggressively barren and limited game, EU5 will be modded to every era of human history and any speculative fiction universe. Just imagine having to make a modern day mod for this game. Or a bronze age mod. Or a Middle Earth/Wheel of Time/Star Wars mod. It would be far easier with 2D models.

To add to this: Vic 3, I don't think I need to elaborate on that.
 
  • 6Haha
  • 1
Reactions:
I think this game should urgently switch to Disco Elysium portraits before it's too late.
 
  • 4
  • 2
Reactions:
  • 2
Reactions:
They are not remotely close to "terrible". They are perfectly fine. Its certainly no worse than every single Philosopher advisor in EU4 having exactly the same portrait.

No-one is going into hysterics over the lack of variety in EU4 Philosophers... yet they are upset that there isn't enough variety in these kings faces?
An advisor potrait is meant to quickly convey what type of advisor you have available. Stunning handsome man? Force limit. Admiral with bicorn even if 3 centuries early? Naval bonus. Nerdy guy? Treasurer. @EarlKonrad 's avatar? Merchant.
Most were ported from eu3 so they were mainly european but when european playing europeans mainly its not much of an issue. Missionaries, colonists, diplomats, merchants also use the same icon no matter where you are because the ui is easier to use that way and playing kongo isnt as much a shock that way.
Meanwhile you want to tell the difference easily between kings if you are going through your history, or checking if the neighbouring ruler died, they should look distinct.
Project Caesar appears to have all of the mechanics of EU4, most of the mechanics of Vicky, and some of the mechanics of CK3. It is over the longer simulation span than any other Paradox game. It has all the making of the most complex and sophisticated grand strategy game ever developed (based on the TT's we have seen).

But we're going to dismiss it as "for casuals uninterested in deep strategy" because... it has 3D portraits? Hmmmm.
Vic3 letting you become a socialist multicultural republic in 1850 where "goods substitution" is a regular occurence in peace time, and ck3 having 101 adultery events, are examples of aiming at casuals
 
  • 10
  • 9
  • 2
  • 1Like
Reactions:
The overhauls make this game worth playing. Have you heard of Anbennar or Tamriel Universalis or Westeros Universalis?
Um, I've only heard of one of those and haven't even played it. In fact, I intentionally avoid total overhauls and most other super impactful mods (if it changes the map I probably won't use it). And I'm positive I'm not the only one. So the idea that total overhauls "make the game worth playing" is false from first principles.
 
  • 7Like
  • 2
  • 2
Reactions:
Um, I've only heard of one of those and haven't even played it. In fact, I intentionally avoid total overhauls and most other super impactful mods (if it changes the map I probably won't use it). And I'm positive I'm not the only one. So the idea that total overhauls "make the game worth playing" is false from first principles.

You are not the only one, but you are in the minority when it comes to mod users in most PDX games.
 
  • 3
  • 1
Reactions:
Multiple CK3 mods were either slowed down by the 3D models or just use the normal assets. It is extremely hard to find 3D artists. And unlike HOI4, an aggressively barren and limited game, EU5 will be modded to every era of human history and any speculative fiction universe. Just imagine having to make a modern day mod for this game. Or a bronze age mod. Or a Middle Earth/Wheel of Time/Star Wars mod. It would be far easier with 2D models.
The hit to modders is really strange in an era when Paradox otherwise openly pushes for ease of modding. It's such a nightmarishly difficult skill to find resources for that it outright muddles their messaging on that topic. Yes, our game is a platform on which you can make anything you dream of - just so long as it looks exactly like what we gave you in the first place.

it does feel like at some point a business decision was made that 3D portraits were required for all Paradox games.
I absolutely agree with this. I'm not sure I can point to a single specific choice or action that makes it clear to me but something about the way they've gone about rolling it out over the last ten years makes it feel like it wasn't a project-by-project dev decision, but a choice made by someone above them (if I had to guess, I'd say it's the extremely sudden onset of them in every game after HoI4 combined with the relative radio silence where complaints are lobbed at them; you'd think if it was an actual choice at least one game would have still opted for 2D, or else the devs would feel more able to defend their decision). Honestly, if that was true, I'd respect Paradox a lot more if they just said that. If the reason is very bluntly that they were told they had to use it and they wanted 2D as well, I'd be more likely to just shut up and deal. Certainly it would mean the devs got harassed less and all of our complaints could be a little more targeted towards the actual obstacle.

I say that even as someone who understands that if you invest in a system you want to then reuse your work - this is part of why most companies that even makeone reuse their game engines, after all. And I've worked at a big company long enough to know that when upper management knows they have something that seems to work in one place but also cost them money, very little will get through their skulls to dissuade them from reusing it elsewhere. But part of being a good business leader is trusting your employees. When they say something will work or won't, believe them. They're the subject matter expert, not you.
 
  • 9Like
  • 2
  • 1
  • 1
Reactions:
You are not the only one, but you are in the minority when it comes to mod users in most PDX games.
On this forum and among mod users perhaps I'm a bit of an outlier. But if playing Bethesda games has taught me anything, it's that the vast majority of players don't use any mods at all. A position that the folks in the modding/enthusiast community find utterly baffling.

So in that sense I'm probably closer to an "average" user. But I'd still probably guess that the market for total conversions is much smaller than for minor balance changes, gui stuff, and "flavor" (my source being nothing but vibes :))
 
  • 4
Reactions:
Why not use 3D modeling? I'm pretty like 3D.

With 3D modeling, I can now see 3D anime girls in EU5! We can also add a lot of "physical effects" (you know what)

Foe example of FRENCH QUEEN(maybe he is french femboy king! which make me more excited):
View attachment 1144435
Captured Teutonic Knights:

1717689358840.jpeg



Knights who fell in the mud during the Battle Agincourt:
1717689381824.jpeg



Der Kaiser ist ein lieber Mann:
1717689677772.png
 
  • 3Love
  • 2Haha
  • 1
Reactions:
You are not the only one, but you are in the minority when it comes to mod users in most PDX games.
it's that the vast majority of players don't use any mods at all. A position that the folks in the modding/enthusiast community find utterly baffling.
How is that a surprizing thing at all given that it is the default?
 
An advisor potrait is meant to quickly convey what type of advisor you have available. Stunning handsome man? Force limit. Admiral with bicorn even if 3 centuries early? Naval bonus. Nerdy guy? Treasurer. @EarlKonrad 's avatar? Merchant.
Ngl i always hover my mouse over the portrait to see their actual occupation(though it doesn't really matter since the buffs are immediately obvious) so at least for me who's been playing EU4 for a long time they're not really that recognizable.
 
  • 3
Reactions: